Category Archives: family dog

How does an artist know himself? Now there’s a difficult question. I spend all my time looking at the world with the eyes of imagination. I don’t even seem to be able to take photographs in the normal way other people do. Maybe I should consider this self-think through the medium of pictures I have made with captions added to them?

I have learned about dog poop five times a day since 2011 when we found Jade, our dog.

I was a middle school teacher for 24 of my 31 years of teaching. I love/hate 7th Graders.

When things go wrong, I tend to make a joke about it.

I like to draw students as I saw them, not as they really were.

I always see myself as the one with the BIG pencil.

If there is goofiness around here, it is all my fault.

In spite of the title, I don’t know how to disappear.

I love everything Disney.

I tend not to be very much like other people. I don’t think like they do.

In grade school, I was deeply in love with Alicia Stewart, though I never told her that, and that is not her real name.

My high school art teacher told me that when an artist draws someone, he always ends up making it look a little bit like himself. That is because, I suppose, an artist can only draw what he knows and he really only knows himself. That being said, this post should really look just like me.

While walking the dog yesterday, we struck up a conversation about writing and being a writer that proved once and for all that DOGS REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE!

She turned around on the end of her leash and looked at me with that woeful you-don’t-feed-me-enough look on her little well-fed face. “You know, I was reading your blog today, and I think I know how to make you a well-known writer and best-selling author.”

“Oh, really?” I said. “Since when do you know anything about being a writer or marketing fiction?”

“Well, you do remember that I wrote a couple of blog posts for you already.”

“True. But I can’t afford to do that again. You type with your tongue and it leaves the keyboard all sticky. I haven’t gotten it truly clean and working properly again since that last time. If you are asking to write another post, you can forget it.”

“Well, sorry about that. But I do think I know how to make your writing more popular with a bigger audience.”.

“Oh? How could you possibly know that?”

“Hey, talking dog here! That has to count for something, doesn’t it? Don’t you think people would be amazed to learn about things from a dog’s perspective?”

“Nobody’s going to believe I have a talking dog. That isn’t something within the realm of what is normal. They are all going to think I am just a crazy old man.”

“Well, you are a crazy old man. I can’t help that. But what if you told stories from a dog’s perspective? You know, things that only a dog could’ve come up with?”

“Oh, like what, for instance?”

Why does the neighbor’s dog always smell like burritos?

“Well, you know that more than half of what a dog perceives about the world she gets through her sense of smell?”

“Okay…”

“Like that spot on the grass over there. Boy dog. Handsome border collie… ate three hotdogs about four days ago. Ooh! He smells perfect!”

“You’re talking about poop smells again, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. But I can also tell you about the pigeons that were in that live oak tree there yesterday.”

“Oh? What color were they?”

“I don’t know… gray maybe?”

“Bird doo. You are smelling old bird poop! You want me to write about poop more?”

“Well, no… not exactly. But if you could tell your stories through the sense of smell more… that would be unique and different. People would like that a lot because it’s never really been done before.”

“You do understand that I can’t use my laptop to write smells? There are no words I could use that will automatically put smells into the reader’s nose.”

“Well, but if you could invent one…”

“According to you, it would be mostly poop smells anyway. Who wants to sniff that?”

“It would make your blog more popular with dogs.”

“But dogs don’t read!”

“How do you know for sure? You believed me when I said I read your blog today.”

“Well, you certainly got me there. Now, don’t we have some important business to take care of?”

I have been taking note of the Republican approach to science as displayed repeatedly in Congress. I decided that this is the kind of science that can best explain the dog-poop phenomena, since it is, ultimately, about how the data feels more than measuring and quantifying and dealing with, you know, those fact thingies.

You see, the problem comes in with the fact that my dog, Jade, is producing dog poop at record levels, and it is all becoming rather a burden. Now the dog-poop literature, (yes it does exist, since dog lovers write about anything and everything to do with dogs), says that it is not uncommon for a healthy young dog to poop as much as 5 times a day. But my dog seems to poop exactly one time more per day than the number of times you take her for a walk. If we go out five times, she poops six. If I take her out in the middle of the night for a sixth time, she poops seven. What the heck?

My wife really hates the dog because she poops on the carpet so much. (The dog, not my wife. My wife is satisfactorily house-broken.) There are places on the living room carpet she marked as a puppy five years ago where she insists on re-pooping practically every night. No matter how often we scrub the carpet and box her ears, still, brown spots and poop lumps to greet us almost every morning. Maybe she does it because my wife tells her how much she hates her and the dog wants to get even. But that is the opposite of what the dog says. She loves Mommy because Mommy gives the dog soup bones. Somehow, it seems the dog believes she is giving us all a gift by pooping on the carpet and filling the house with her personal scent. She poops for us because she loves us.

Here Jade Beyer is busy using Henry’s computer. She has her own Facebook page and everything.

I drew the diagram at the start of this article to better explain my Republicanized theories of dog poop and dog love. You will notice that, based on observations of total output, I have theorized that dogs must be almost completely hollow. They don’t apparently store poop in their legs, but the rest of their dog bodies appear to be hollow poop-tubes that store nearly infinite amounts of poo. Dogs also apparently have some kind of instant-poop-maker at the base of the throat so that anything they eat, dog food, my missing left socks, my son’s retainer, dead rats, whatever was growing behind the rice bag in the pantry, and whatever people food they can steal, is instantly transformed into poop. Need to poop on the floor because dad didn’t give you any of the bacon at breakfast? Eat a sock. Fill up with instant poop ammo. The poop on the floor will prove how much you love dad and why he should give you bacon more.

So, now that I have studied the poop problem, what solutions could there be?

Well, I have threatened the dog to use corks and other sorts of plugs, but that wouldn’t solve the problem so much as merely delay it. And I dread the impending explosion in the living room that such a plan suggests to a vivid imagination like mine. I have thought about feeding her less, but it seems she can still use the puppy beg-eye to such good effect that she could subsist entirely on people food conned out of my son and daughter. So, I will use a Republican congressional solution. Since their response to poverty is to give more money to rich people, and the solution to climate change is to cut pollution restrictions, then obviously I need to feed my dog MORE! I need to cram it down her greedy little throat if necessary. That will fix it. Or bring about fat, exploding dogs all the sooner.

My name is Jade Beyer, and I’m the loyal, lovable family dog (at least, I hope I still am). I am writing today’s post because Dad is mad at me. And I should point out that it takes a lot of effort for me write Dad’s post for him. I can’t really type with my paws because I hit lots of letters all at once when I do that. I found a way, however, to roll up my tongue and punch a single letter at a time. And the dog slobber only makes the computer spark and fritz a little bit more than usual. So he should really appreciate me for going to all that effort.

You see, yesterday, after lunch was over, I got up on the table to look for left-over people food. Eating enough people food turns you into a people, as I’m sure you already knew. Really, it’s true! Otherwise, how could a family dog like me learn to read and write so good? Anyway, while looking for people food, I found a clear plastic thing in the shape of Henry’s teeth next to his empty plate. It smelled like Henry. And I love Henry. So, I chewed on the thing that smelled just like Henry because I love him. How was I supposed to know that a new retainer costs $350? People pay ridiculous amounts of money for stuff that Henry just puts in his own mouth anyway. It doesn’t justify my family re-telling that awful story about when Uncle Maligaya was a boy in the Philippines and he let his friends talk him into cooking and eating the family dog. I really don’t like that story.

A portrait of me as the people I’m meant to be

And this morning, Dad got back from driving the Princess to her new school all grumpy because of traffic and stupid Texas drivers who don’t know how to signal for a lane change but definitely know how to cut you off in the drop-off lane. I offered to drive for him. But he’s still mad at me. And he reminded me that the last time I drove the car, I accidentally ran over three cats. (I told him the reason for that is because I have no thumbs and can’t hold the steering wheel properly. But that might not be entirely true. Mr. Tinkles is evil and deserved to die.) So, we settled on me writing his post for today so he could have time to call the orthodontist and make an appointment to get a new retainer made. And if it doesn’t turn out to be any good as a piece of literature, well, it’s because I am dog, and apparently not a very good dog. (I’m really not clear on what “I’m going to make dog burgers out of that @#$%&! dog!” actually means.)

I had a magic soda bottle that I could rub and out popped a genii who helped me clean the house. Now that my wife has returned to the Philippines for family reasons, I have apparently lost the bottle. So far, digging through piles of junk in the library and my bedroom have only resulted in more mess. I could’ve sworn I left it under the bed. Part of the problem with cleaning in the library is the fact that I can’t pick up stuff for more than ten minutes before finding a book I have to look at or re-read, or put on my re-re-read pile.

Part of the problem that leads to the need for a genii to clean is the responsibility of the family dog. And she doesn’t do her share of the housework. Jade the dog seriously believes that she can be a people if she eats enough people food. So she steals from the pantry when my kids invariably leave the pantry door open. She will pull out the Pringles cans, the half-eaten bags of chips, the powdered chocolate milk packets, and all sorts of other packages to dismember and shred behind the sofa and overstuffed chairs in the living room. And no matter how many times I lecture her about it, she never picks that trash up. She just sulks like a teenage girl, hating me for my fuddy-duddy old dinosaur brain. But I occasionally have to remind her that people, the group she so desperately wants to be a part of, don’t pee on the living room rug when they are impatient to go out.

So, I am just guessing here, but I think the time has come to stop searching for magic bottles and just roll up my sleeves and do it myself. Time to pick up the trash. Vacuum the floor with the aging vacuum… a device that does not work well at all, but ironically doesn’t suck… and then shampoo the carpet with dog-stain remover. I need to reorganize book shelves, dust behind TV’s, some of which no longer work, pick up and do laundry, actually wash the dishes in the sink before putting them in the dishwasher to do to them whatever mysterious cleaning magic a dishwasher actually does… (Have you ever noticed that if you don’t pre-wash dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, they don’t get clean? What does this machine actually do?) Anyway, the only workable solution is to actually clean the house. Children and dogs who want to be people help in small ways, mostly by cheering you on and supportive comments and eating stuff you find behind the couch… and the dog helps with that last part.

Since today is a hot summer Saturday, too hot to do neglected yard work (a whole ‘nother post it seems) I will start today. And I suspect that Clean Gene the Cleaning Genii is off visiting his cousin, the guy pictured on bottles of Mr. Clean, in Cleveland so that he can see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now that they have finally enshrined Steve Miller even though Mr. Miller never really wanted to be.

Now that she regularly steals people food from the pantry, Jade the dog is becoming more and more like the human race she wants to be a member of. Recently she was reading my blog and got the idea that she could write poetry. So, I was searching for an idea for today’s post and decided I would let her give it a try. So all of this poetry today will be written by the family dog.

Introducing Dog Thoughts

Woof! Grumph-hak-borph-borph… Rrrr.

Did you get that? Or do I have to translate everything into your language?

Boofa-Rrrrr. Bork bork grumph…. okay, we’ll do it your way.

But every time I need to add a tail wag,

Ima gonna go “*************” where each “*” is one wag.

Got it now? People are so dumb!

The family dog after eating enough potato chips to become all people-y…

It Is a Stinky World!

Ooowow! I go outside and I can smell dog poop in the park!

The rabbit that lives in the hedge leaves those little round brown things!